I Will Not Scream
by mountain ash
Summary: Every step would feel like walking on broken glass. He would never see his family again. He would never speak again. He was set up for failure and this endeavor would probably be the death of him, but if it meant he got the chance to make Itachi love him, then so be it. Itachi would never have to know. Kisame x Itachi, Kisaita, Itakisa, yaoi.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

**This will be a sort of prologue to the story, which is why it is so short-the rest of the story will not be in this format.**

**This story is based off of 'The Little Mermaid,' but I took a few creative liberties with it. Don't worry, just a few. You may not even notice them. **

In the depths of the ocean, were no human could dive and no ships traveled there existed a beautiful palace made of exotic shells and shining pearls. Most of the ocean floor exists in darkness and cold, but this palace shone with light as though it pulled sunshine down through the waves by some paranormal force.

This was the royal palace of His Majesty, King Sasori.

King Sasori had once been happy and bright and had smiled. He had married Queen Deidara, and had children. He would spend his days walking through his underwater garden with her and making art with her in their room when winter came to the sea and the brilliance of their garden faded.

But one day, the vibrant queen fell ill and could not leave her room. A renowned medic named Kabuto was brought to the palace, but to no avail. The Queen died, leaving King Sasori alone. He could not bare to gaze upon his children, for they all bore some trait of their mother and reminded him of a pain in his heart that could never be eased or numbed. He retreated to the room where he had spent his winters with Deidara and rarely ever left.

The raising of his six children was left to Grandmother Chiyo. If she could not pull her beloved Sasori from his sadness, she could at least provide for his children.

Chiyo was proud of her royal status, and raised her charges to feel that same pride. Every night she would tell them bedtime stories of foolish humans, always ending her parables by assuring them that it was a blessing to be born a mermaid and not a human.

All but the youngest, Kisame, accepted this as the gospel truth.

After the death of the queen, the royal garden was given to the king's children, who each tended it in their own way. Kisame grew brilliant red trees and flowers and waving fronds in his corner of the garden. He spent a good deal of time here, wondering about the world above the waves, which by order of Grandmother Chiyo was forbidden to him until his fifteenth birthday.

Kisame grew to love the color red. It was the color of blood, something Kisame shed regularly. He was by no means peaceful-merpeople on the whole are not. He was equipped with teeth like broken glass and muscles to aid him in dragging struggling soldiers from sinking ships. He kept a blade called Samehada strapped to his back at all times. As the years passed, he grew restless.

His older siblings had all seen the land above the waves before him, and agreed with Chiyo that merpeople were by far the superior race. Kisame had questioned them, and was told again and again that humans were gullible and not worth wasting thought on. But Kisame refused to believe them. He felt that there was something up there that didn't exist down in King Sasori's palace. He had no reason to think that whatever he was looking for existed on land, or that it even existed at all, but he did.

By the time he reached the age of fifteen, he had testosterone pumping through his veins and was beginning to drift away from Grandmother Chiyo and accepted her authority less readily. He grew more quarrelsome and impulsive. Chiyo wondered privately if it was prudent of her to allow Kisame to see the surface, but there was not much she could do to stop him. It was all she could do to keep him from going early.

Maybe if she had been able to stop him, things would have been different.

**Please Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Prince Itachi sighed and rubbed his temples. He was fairly sure he had been clear with all crew members that he did not want any alcohol aboard while the ship was out of sight of land. He was sure his parents, King Zetsu and Queen Tobi, had been clear that there was to be no alcohol onboard this ship, _period_. His mother had even gone so far as to put up signs on the walls of the ship's interior reminding the crew that for this particular trip they were supposed to be sober twenty-four-seven. He was looking at one such sign right now. It was partially obscured by the drunken sailor leaning against it, bottle of rum in one hand.

Very comforting, considering his life was in the hands of these people.

Well, if the crew were going to be breaking the rules, then he should be allowed to as well.

Glancing around to be sure that no one was watching who might stop him, (there was no one but the intoxicated sailor) then hurried out of the Captain's cabin.

There was one scary moment when he tripped and fell rather loudly on the floor, surely calling the attention of any crew member in the area. Looking around wildly like a cornered mouse he found that he had tripped over a sailor who appeared to be sleeping off a couple bottles of beer. Regardless, he wouldn't be ratting out the prince for leaving the Captain's cabin any time soon.

Cool, crisp sea air buffeted his face as he clamored up the stairs to the deck. Much better. Itachi stretched and glanced around him. The sun was bright and unobscured by clouds. The seas were calm, a myriad of blues and dark greens, like a desert of turquoise gemstones. Wavelets lapped lazily against the hull of the ship. He rested his hands on the railing and leaned over the railing a little to look over the side. Dolphins were riding the ship's bow, clicking and chattering like rain on his bedroom roof at night. Itachi smiled…well, that was going a bit far. He stopped frowning. The prince didn't smile much.

A cold hand latched onto his neck. Suddenly the railing was ripped from his grasp as someone behind him yanked him away from the most peace he'd gotten since boarding this god-forsaken ship. The Prince whirled around to send a death glare at whoever it was and reached up to fling the offending limb from his body as though a criminal had reached out to touch him.

It wasn't a convict in grey prison clothes he found himself facing, but that didn't mean Itachi thought any more highly of him. Instead he found himself glaring at a sailor with a beard as tangled as a briar patch and as filthy as a rat's nest.

"Ya shouldn't be leaning ov'r th' railin' like tha', Highness, not wi' those 'orrible dolphins lurking around. Dolphins work for th' merpeople, ya know. If they see ya like tha', ri' where they kin reach ya, they'll sing ta ya, hypnotize ya like, an' grab ya righ' off th' deck." The man accompanied this assertion with a wild gesture that could have been a mermaid pulling an unsuspecting prince from a ship or a chimpanzee jumping for an out-of-reach tree branch.

"Merpeople?" Itachi raised one condescending eyebrow.

"Correct, Highness. Those blighters'll drown any poor seafarer down ta a watery grave firs' chance they get. See thi' here tattoo?" The man gestured at his upper bisep, which was adorned with a rather animated picture of a mermaid getting stabbed with a knife and being fed to a shark. Upon closer inspection it appeared that the weapon in question was a butter knife. There was something written in Latin around the picture. He was pretty sure it read 'Mors nereidum! Sit earum alligat ungues esse erutos iusta per Angelorum!', but he couldn't be sure. A few of the words were misspelled. "I got thi' ta ward em off. Ta show em I won't go down pass've-like." The sailor puffed out his chest in pride.

Just great. The first sailor he'd seen all day that wasn't drunk, and they were crazy.

"Shouldn't ya be in th' Captain's cabin, Highness? There's a storm comin'."

Itachi made a point of looking at the perfectly clear blue sky and flat calm water. The sailor laughed. "Don' believe me if ya like, but we 'ad a red sunset thi' mornin'. Thi' nice weather won' hold out." Itachi made no move to leave, instead turning and leaning against the railing to get a better look at the dolphins. They certainly didn't _look_ like evil minions of a maniacal human-hating mer-king.

"Where is the captain, anyway?"

The sailor cleared his throat sheepishly. "He's nursin' a rather nasty hangover, Highness."

Itachi sighed inaudibly.

This was going to be a long voyage.

* * *

Kisame swan leisurely up towards the surface. He turned fifteen today, and so was technically permitted to do this. The fact that Grandmother Chiyo disapproved wholeheartedly and had been planning on talking him out of it, possibly forbidding him from going this morning were irrelevant.

An oval-shaped shadow passed over the sun. A school of fish darted out of the darker waters, streaking past Kisame.

_A ship._

Ships meant humans.

Kisame could practically hear Grandmother Chiyo in his ear, whispering that whatever he was thinking, it was a bad idea and he should get himself out of temptation's way right now. He resolutely tuned her out. What was he supposed to do, swim the other way? Of course he was going to take a look. Who in their right mind wouldn't?

The shadow was moving relatively fast to the south. Kisame turned a little to follow it as he grew steadily closer to the surface. How much more perfect could this morning get? A chance to see humans the first time he came to the surface-what were the odds that a ship would be passing over this exact spot on this exact same day?

The water around him grew steadily lighter as the morning sun rose properly and he drew closer to the surface. He now so close that he could now see a warped reflection of a brown wood hull above the water. He had to be careful to steer clear of the rather nasty-looking contraption propelling the bulky ship along through the water-it had rather too many rotating sharp edges in his opinion.

A pod of dolphins shot past him, rubbing up against the side of the ship like cats. Every once in a while one would leap out of the water and twist in midair before reentering the water with a _splash_. Kisame joined in with them, partly for the fun of it and partly for the cover they provided should someone be on deck that might see him.

Keeping slightly ahead of the vessel, he peeked over the surface as often as he dared to snatch glances at the ship. Disappointingly, there were no humans on deck. Well, there was someone at the other end of the boat holding a giant wheel, but they looked kind of out of it, and were slumped where they sat. He wasn't all that worried about _him _seeing him.

The prow of the ship was adorned with a figurehead of a mermaid. Or at least, Kisame _thought_ it _might_ be a mermaid. It had a fish tail and human torso, but she looked kind of thin and fragile, like there were no muscles on those arms or in that torso at all. Her mouth was carved slightly open. Her teeth were blunt and useless-looking. Her fingers tapered to perfect, rounded fingernails. That wasn't right either-they should be a bit ragged from use, shouldn't they?

Maybe it was just some fictitious creature humans had dreamed up.

Regardless of what precisely it was, the way it was carved out of the bow offered several good handholds and the ridiculously perfect face and wooded hair blowing in the wind (What was wind doing under the sea? If this being had a fish tail, the surely it lived underwater, away from the wind.) offered good cover to hide his peeking eyes behind.

Making sure no one had joined the man at the wheel, Kisame leapt from the water and latched onto the figurehead and pulled himself up all the way out of the water.

It was a very curious sensation, being up in the air without being at least partially submerged. For one thing, it was quite cold. The water still clinging to his skin enhanced the chill of the wind created as the ship pushed forward.

Someone emerged from the depths of the ship. Kisame ducked behind the figurehead and peeked around the impressive hair.

The human was kind of short and very pale. He had dark black hair tied out of his inky eyes at the nape of his neck in a ponytail. A necklace with little pearls on it hung around his neck. He was dressed carelessly in clothes someone else had obviously put a lot of care into picking out for him. Unlike the man slumped at the wheel, this man walked gracefully and with poise despite the rocking and rolling of the deck underneath his feet.

He seemed…melancholy. The kind of person whose smiles were hard-earned.

The melancholy man ambled over to the side of the ship and gazed up at the sky, just where Kisame could see him and remain hidden at the same time. The vague frown etched across his face was so deeply engraved it seemed he must have been born faintly disapproving of the nurse that delivered him.

The melancholy man rested his hands on the railing on the side of the ship and leaned down to gaze at the water. Kisame quickly maneuvered himself onto the other side of the figurehead to avoid being seen.

The melancholy man spotted the dolphins and smiled…wait, no, he just stopped frowning. Somehow, his frown cast such an ever-present shadow over his face that all he had to do was stop and his face seemed illuminated.

That guy should really stop frowning.

Another man came up onto the deck and kicked the man slumped at the wheel. Said man startled, sputtered a bit, then settled back into his stupor. The second man shook his head in disapproval and turned to survey the deck. He did a double-take when he saw the melancholy man, and sprinted forward to jerk him away from the side of the deck as though a vicious eel was wrapped around it.

The rail looked innocent enough to Kisame.

The man began making speaking rapidly to the melancholy man, waving his arms around as he spoke like kelp caught in a strong current. The melancholy man began frowning again, and raised one eyebrow at the man, a clearly condescending expression. The other man didn't appear to notice.

Kisame let go of the figurehead and dropped back into the ocean and hid in the shadow of the ship.

Perhaps he'd stick around awhile.

* * *

Itachi gazed in disgust at the man dozing at the wheel. How had these men managed to retain their jobs for as long as they had?

After his first few attempts to rouse the helmsman, the prince decided to thrust this problem off on someone else. It was a reasonable method of dealing with a problem. Queen Tobi did it all the time.

However, after navigating several cramped and dark hallways within the ship (and tripping over a couple of empty rum bottles rolling around) to get to the navigator's cabin, he found that things were even worse than he had feared.

The navigator had apparently been intoxicated last night, and sometime between now and then had lost his balance and hit his head on the cabin walls.

Prince Itachi nudged the man a little. He groaned lightly, but his eyes remained closed.

This wasn't good.

The prince shoved the navigator's body out of his way and sat at his desk, looking over the charts.

This wasn't good at all.

For the first couple of miles the marks on the chart were somewhat intelligible, but about halfway through they became sloppy and slapdash, before loosing all meaning entirely. There was a rude drawing of the captain off the nearest land to the west and a large smiley face where there should have been a number indicating the magnitude of the ship's next turn. The marks stopped all together about twenty miles offshore.

They had to have traveled farther than that!

Itachi frantically flipped through the charts, looking for one that hadn't been disfigured. No luck.

He thrust the cluttered papers away from himself and sprinted to the Captain's private quarters, adjacent to the Captain's cabin.

_Someone_ had to know where they were! Surely not _everyone_ aboard this stinking ship had been oblivious to their dangerous deviation from their course. Weren't sailors supposed to know how to navigate by the stars or something? Someone would know where they were-they had to!

Suddenly, he found something large and slightly squishy barring his way. He looked up and found that he had run right into the captain.

"Sir, there has been a disaster, the charts, they're messed up, the helmsman and the navigator are senseless…"

The man blinked and gazed at the prince as he hurried through his narrative of what had transpired in the navigation room with a blank and rather stupid face. When Itachi finally paused for breath, the burly man opened his mouth to speak.

"Shouldn't you be in the Captain's cabin, Highness?"

Itachi groaned as he was led back into the 'safety' of the captain's cabin. That idiot hadn't even listened to him! The first thing he would do when he got home would be to strip these goons of their jobs.

The captain assured him that he would see what the problem was, but somehow Itachi doubted the captain would be the one to solve the problem. Perhaps one of the more experienced sailors would know what to do.

Itachi had subconsciously feared that something like this would happen. He hated putting anything, let alone his life, in the hands of other people. The only reason he was on this loathsome ship at all was because his mother and father had press-ganged him onto it. He had resisted right up until cast-off.

Though, in hindsight, he really did have a share of the blame on his own shoulders.

Ever since his little brother Sasuke had run off with Naruto, the captain of the guard, his parents had been rather anxious about getting him married and tied down in the palace so he could succeed them and continue the Uchiha bloodline. Which meant setting Itachi up with a princess. In all likelihood an absolute airhead of a princess, to.

Stupid Sasuke.

However, his mother and father had met each other and fallen in love of their own accord, and had no idea how to get Itachi interested in any particular girl. So they had resorted to the cliché hold-a-ball-and-hope-he-dances-with-someone-pretty trick. Itachi had danced once all night; with a flamingo-haired girl who had looked uncomfortable and whose large forehead he thought would be enough to keep his parents from seriously considering her.

How wrong he was.

He had never even spoken to the girl and his parents decided to ship him off to her kingdom for a year 'for cultural experience.'

His mother had read a little speech off of a pre-prepared piece of paper that she had tried to hide in her sleeve when she told him that she was packing off. It was obviously a set-up, and no one was really taking any pains to conceal it. Itachi had seethed, hid in his room for a week, run away twenty-four times, faked three illnesses, and faked his own death, but to no avail. When his mother said he was going, he was going.

And so here he was, stranded on a ship in the middle of who knows where, lost and without a helmsman, or navigator, where the only unintoxicated person aboard who knew anything that could get them out of this mess thought a poorly drawn tattoo of a mermaid with a butter knife in her stomach getting fed to a shark would save him from a vengeful pack of dolphins.

Itachi put his head in his hands.

**Please Review!**

**By the way, who knows what the Latin on the tattoo means? And don't just put it into GoogleTranslate. It will give you a garbled and semi-unintelligible translation.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

Itachi paced across the deck, muttering poisonous curses under his breath at the captain. How could they all be such dolts?

The dolphins had left (Itachi had a sneaking suspicion that the crazy sailor with the tattoo had something to do with that; the deck was mysteriously clear of empty rum bottles) so the sea around the ship's prow was serene and undisturbed now.

To bad. Those dolphins had been the highlight of the voyage.

Suddenly, something moved in his peripheral vision. Itachi's head snapped to his left to look.

Everything was still. No sea gulls in the sky this far away from land, no dolphins racing the ship, none of those mermaids the crazy sailor raved about.

Itachi looked away and resumed pacing.

Well, if there was nothing he could do about the crew, he might as well do something useful.

Like figuring out what he'd do once he reached land and had to go call on that pink-haired princess.

It wasn't as if he'd asked her about her opinion on Shakespeare's infamous lines beginning 'to be or not to be.' (Did they deserve their place in the play for their poetic perfection, or should Mr. Shakespeare have edited them out because they didn't tell the audience a single thing it didn't already know?) He didn't know if she was intelligent or just another flower with handmaids and a golden circlet. He didn't even know if she was a good dancer-she had been so nervous dancing with him, that couldn't be how she naturally danced. Did she parrot what her parents thought, or did she bother to ask them why they thought that way? Was she even interested in him? Were her parents in with his parents on their dastardly plot to get heirs to the throne?

He wasn't even entirely sure what her name was. Sarah? Sakura? Something like that.

Itachi sent up a mental prayer to any deity that would listen that the girl would be a good person. Or at the very least that she would get sick and vomit on somebody important while his parents were in the room and ruin their good impression of her if she wasn't.

It was no use. He was incredibly anti-social and everyone at court knew it. His parents had their teeth sunk into this barest glimmer of an opportunity to get him married so deep they probably wouldn't even change their minds if she threw up on _them_.

_There it was again!_

Something had moved-right near the figurehead. Itachi rushed over to it and his gaze pin-balled around, looking for something, _anything_, that could have moved.

Nothing.

However, looking around had drawn his attention to the rather malevolent clouds gathering on the horizon.

Maybe he should tell someone about those. They probably wouldn't do anything about it, but he'd feel better if someone knew. He turned and headed towards the stern of the ship, unaware of the eyes watching him from the water.

* * *

Night had begun to fall and Itachi was growing worried.

The sun was fast slipping into the ocean like a glimmering gold coin dripped into a puddle. Rosy pink and red hued rays of the dying sun tinted the clouds gathering on the horizon the color of wine. The ocean appeared a sea of blood. The surface of the water, which had been calm all day, was now choppy and frothy as a strong wind buffeted the waves against the ship's hull.

And the waves were getting bigger.

But was anyone doing anything about this? Tying things down, changing the ship's course, something? No, all of the sailors on deck (in various states of drunkenness) were trying to rig up several crates of fireworks, something they were quite obviously not qualified to do.

He turned his head and searched through the growing gloom for the helmsman. The previous one had been 'temporarily relieved of duty,' something that didn't sound much like a punishment to Itachi, and the crazy sailor from before was at the wheel. The captain had assured the prince that this man knew how to navigate by the stars, and would get them to where they were supposed to be easily.

A particularly strong gust of wind tore at the ship's sails and whipped Itachi's hair from his face. He tried to yell that they should adjust the sails, but no one could have heard him over the wind, even if they _were_ listening.

The ship bucked under him as another monster wave rocked the hull. Itachi was sent sprawling and tumbled down the deck, hitting his head on barrels and rope as he rolled. His vision twisted and swirled as he desperately flailed for something to hold onto. Something large and blunt connected with his hip, and something sharp pierced his left shoulder.

A bright light flashed briefly in front of his eyes, and then his back hit the mast with a _crash_ like a thunder. He might have heard a faint crack, but he couldn't be sure. All he could be sure of was the dull pain in his upper back, which was spreading like venom through his body. He gingerly reached over his shoulder; it stung to touch. His fingers probed lower. Something wet and sticky marred his white shirt. He frowned and withdrew his hand to wipe it off on his shirt.

Another flash of light.

His fingers had left red streaks like blackberry stains on his front.

Somewhere to his left there was another _crash_. Had someone else lost their balance? But if he was against the mast, what did they hit to make that same sound? Was it getting darker faster? No, he shouldn't concentrate on that. He had something much more troubling to deal with right now.

He was leaking red all over the deck.

Another flash and another _crack_.

Itachi looked up at the sky and understood.

People weren't falling across the deck like he had-that was thunder and firecrackers he heard. The sailors had finally gotten the fireworks to go off just as the ship had entered the tempest. Thousands of colored sparks like pools of fireflies flittered like sequins against inky-black storm clouds. Their light twinkled on the uneven surface of the sea so that the water around them glowed and shimmered as it sloshed and heaved. Every once in a while lightning would strike just when the fireworks went off, and the water would appear white for a few seconds. Sometimes the intense light would catch a shower of sea spray and Itachi could see a rainbow. Wind howled like a pack of wolves and drove the sea to greater heights. Glittering multi-colored waves crashed over onto the deck. Itachi belatedly realized that the growing pool he was sitting in wasn't all blood-most of it was seawater. When lightning sizzled through the air again, he could sea his face and the fireworks behind him reflected in a sepia-tinted mirror. Glittering, multi-colored rain began to fall.

It looked like Armageddon.

* * *

Kisame was pretty sure the water wasn't supposed to be _on top_ of the ship. Not that he had much expertise in this area, but it seemed a logical guess.

He had been with the ship all day, watching. So far, he had concluded that most humans were complete imbeciles. He hesitated to say _all_ only because of the melancholy man.

That one Kisame was in awe of.

When the tempest came and all the other humans had run around (belatedly) in a panic trying to do something useful, the melancholy man seemed to have a plan in mind. He had taken a rather impressive fall, and yet still managed to get back up again. He had slowly but surely worked his way to the wheel and stopped it from spinning out of control (whoever was at the wheel had fallen overboard shortly before). While the melancholy man really didn't look that strong and didn't really have any body mass to use, he sure put an effort into keeping the ship from spinning wildly and throwing people overboard.

This man's actions probably would have saved several lives if lightning hadn't struck the ship neatly down the middle, setting fire to the deck and allowing water to gush through the charred hole in the ship's belly.

Was the melancholy man spooked by the flames like everyone else on the ship? No, he tried to signal to everyone to get into the small wooden boats stacked on deck. Not that his voice ever made it to anyone's ears over the storm, but still, points to him.

Did he get discouraged because the ship was burning and crumbling under his feet and the people he was trying to save couldn't hear him? _No_! He went and untied the lifeboats himself and tried to help sailors into them. Was that determination or what?

Too bad the ship cracked down the middle just then and sent everyone tumbling into the raven black sea.

And even then the melancholy man refused to just drown. No, that clever human found a floating barrel (one that wasn't on fire) and latched onto a rope tied around its circumference.

So when he lost consciousness and slipped below the waves, what could Kisame do but go save him?

It would be such a waste to let someone with so much fight in them die.

**Please Review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, It would have turned out very differently and I would be able to pay for any college I wanted.**

_Itachi dreamed._

_He dreamed that his ship had sunk in flames and rain and lighting and that bodies had littered the water. He dreamed that he had begun to sink, and that the water began to seep into his lungs and that the flashes of light and color grew steadily more and more distant as he sunk further and further beneath the waves._

_He dreamed a hand gripped his hair and halted his descent. He dreamed a strong, muscled arm wrapped around him and lifted him to the surface and to air._

* * *

Light.

Light was shining through his closed eyelids.

Where was the darkness? He had drowned, hadn't he? Shouldn't it be dark underwater, where the sun's warm rays couldn't comfort him?

Something scratchy grated against his back. Almost like sand...

Which brought to his attention that his back hurt like salt had been rubbed into a wound there. Perhaps it had been-there was a cloth bandage wrapped around his upper torso, the back of which was wet.

He could hear the sea. There were gulls screaming somewhere near here, and he could hear water gushing and slapping rocks and swishing over sand. It was a methodical sound, a comforting sound. But it was not a sound he should be hearing. Perhaps he was on a beach? That was the only explanation he could think of for the sound and the sand. But the ship had been so far from land, no one could have swum that far. Certainly not Itachi; he was not really a water person, and only knew the bare basics of swimming.

And he had never heard of someone swimming while they were unconscious.

He _had_ been unconscious, that he was sure of. He remembered light fading and his thoughts slowing. He thought that had been death, but apparently not. So he must not have been conscious.

There was a soft sound coming from his right. Was someone singing? Yes, that was it. But it was more beautiful than any singer his parents had ever invited to court. Was it a siren singing? Had a siren saved him? No, all the stories claimed sirens tempted you into the sea so they could drown and eat you. He had most certainly not been tempted into the water, and he was breathing so he most certainly wasn't drowned.

That, and sirens, merpeople, any form of humans living in the water didn't actually exist.

Was this all a figment of his imagination? Had he hit his head on something when he fell off the ship? Was he breathing in water even now, eyes closed and unaware that he was drawing steadily closer to death's door? If he was, was that a bad thing? Surely going to your death lounging on sand with an angelic voice in your ear was a good way to go.

That had to be the voice he could hear. An angel was here for him.

A hand touched his bandages, and he flinched. Shouldn't an angel's touches be, oh, like caresses? Someone chuckled and whispered to him that he needed to fix the bandage.

So he wasn't alone, and he wasn't with an angel.

The soft singing resumed. Really, whoever this was, they were very good.

A male. It was a male's voice singing him out of dreamland. Had this person saved him? He tried to remember. He tried to remember, but he was coming up blank. Most of his memories were already taking on a dream-like quality anyway, like looking at a spiderweb through a rain-splattered window. He couldn't totally discern fact from fancy. But he felt he could be pretty sure that the hungover sailors on the ship had both lacked this velvet voice and the ability to swim prolonged distances with a prince-sized dead-weight in tow.

He knew the ship sank. He knew there was a storm. He knew he had been sailing with an incompetent crew. But the storm his mind supplied his memories with was not black and grey with white lightning interludes, like storms he'd seen at the palace. This storm was a storm full of satin clouds with sequins of splendid colors twinkling at him like fireworks. The ocean didn't look like a steely cold thing as it was whipped into a frenzy, it looked like wine being swirled in a glass.

Like blood.

Perhaps he _had_ hit his head.

But the indisputable fact remained that he was alive, and it was only in storybooks when people went overboard in a storm in the middle of the ocean and were saved.

Perhaps if he could fall from a flaming ship in the middle of a storm miles from any land and live, then storms clouds could spit colored lightning and the sea could run with blood.

Perhaps sirens could exist.

Why was he on that ship, anyway? He had been going to see someone...a girl. A princess. A princess with pink hair that he had danced with when he should have just left well enough alone.

He didn't want to go.

He didn't ever want to reach land, because that meant having a girl he knew nothing about thrust at him ceaselessly. He hadn't ever wanted to reach land, but he hadn't wanted to drown.

So where was he, anyway, and did he want to be there? He wasn't on the ship, he might be far away from the princess's kingdom, and he could only hear one other person here with him, who had already proved that he could change bandages, so Itachi felt okay about guessing that he wasn't surrounded by morons. These were all pros. However, he had no idea who this man was, he had no idea where he was (he could very well be right outside the palace of that little princess), he wasn't in much of a position to do anything about his current situation. These were all cons.

All he could do was look around.

He opened his eyes.

_So, sirens do exist._

A man sat on his right, singing softly. His skin was tinted blue, as were his eyes. Eyes that were like a summary of the ocean-wild and untamed, but not particularly villainous or beastly. More curious. Thick, dangerous-looking muscles like ropes circled his arms. He had no legs-a fish tail extended from his hips down. It's surface shone with millions of tiny scales that shimmered in the sun. But somehow they didn't look delicate at all. They looked cold, hard. Like diamonds. Like nothing could break or scratch them.

The man looked up and saw Itachi looking at him. He smiled.

It was like looking into a shark's mouth. Rows and rows of wicked sharp teeth glinted dully in the sun like the blades of throwing knives.

This was a merman that sat before him with his tail dangling in the surf, but it was not a storybook merman, or one of those mermen in the royal paintings. Those ones were soft and fragile looking, almost ornamental, and female almost without exception. Like ladies of noble birth stripped of their fancy clothes and their legs. This man looked like he could go head to head with a shark.

But Itachi couldn't say he minded. It was like the difference between looking at a painting of a forest and standing in the branches of the tallest tree. One was limited, generic, and forgettable. The other had dew drops accentuating it, movement, explosions of color. One was a dead thing glorified. The other was something that lived and thrived and fought to survive. One was a house cat, the other a leopard.

"So you're finally awake, huh?"

Itachi struggled to get his arms under him, to push himself up. He should at least sit up while he was talking to this person. But his arms were like dead fish-so heavy and floppy. His muscles didn't want to sit up, they wanted to lie in the sun and sand and be glad that they hadn't drowned.

A hand pressed against his back, steadying him and helping achieve an actual upright position rather than a half-slumped flop.

"You're a real fighter, you know. Most of those other humans were hopeless. Sorry about your shirt, by the way."

Itachi glanced down at his shirt, or what was left of it. The cloth had been ripped right off his body to make the bandages constricting his chest. Oh well. It wasn't like he was emotionally attached to that particular shirt.

"Who are you?"

"Interesting that you ask who, rather than what. I like you."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

The merman threw back his head and laughed. "No, it doesn't. My name is Kisame. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

"Itachi Uchiha. Where are we?"

The man chuckled again. "I was hoping you'd tell me; it all looks the same to my eyes. If it helps, there's a city a couple miles south of here. The sailors at the docks call it Konoha. Ring any bells?"

Itachi nodded. "I live in this country." So that answered the 'where the heck am I' question. He had actually been hoping that he was in some country allied to his. Then he wouldn't have to fake interest in a princess he had no interest in, and wouldn't have to deal with his parents and his own court, but would still have a means of getting home eventually. Oh well. At least he didn't have to meet that little princess yet. Always a plus.

The merman smiled, showing those vicious teeth again. "What good luck."

Everything seemed peaceful for a few precious seconds. So peaceful and undemanding that something amazing was able to take place.

A small smile graced Itachi's face.

Alas, it was not to last.

Voices rang out down the beach. Itachi recognized one of them as the voice of the new captain of the guard (since the whole Sasuke episode, the palace had been needing a new one), Hidan. His swearing could easily be heard above the more proper voices of whoever else was with him.

He opened his eyes just in time to see Kisame turn and leap into the ocean as Hidan and several guards rounded the corner.

"Wait, Kisame-"

It was no use. The merman had disappeared, probably forever.

The small smile slipped away. Why couldn't those idiots have waited a little bit longer? Obviously Kisame had started at their appearance, and that was the reason he fled back into the sea. What were they doing here, anyway? It wasn't like they went out of their way to go to the beach. Why come walk along it today of all days?

Itachi closed his eyes and massaged his temples.

He had started to like that Kisame, too.

* * *

Itachi made a habit of coming to that very stretch of beach every so often, hoping to see Kisame. He knew it was unrealistic that the merman would ever show himself again, but he couldn't help it. Hope springs eternal.

For the first few weeks, it was just as he had expected-waves, varying beach sizes depending on the tide, dangerously slippery rocks near the low tide mark where armies of barnacles lay in wait for any unwary beach-walker whom they might draw blood from. Itachi often returned to the palace with scratched up feet and legs from walking right out to where the ocean met the rocks at the edge of the beach. After the first couple times he limped back up to the palace and bled all over his mother's fancy rugs, Queen Tobi had approached him about why he spent so much time down there. He had been unable to give her a definitive answer, but kept on going. She eventually sent Hidan to talk to him, but she obviously didn't know Hidan very well, as having Hidan ask Itachi what he was doing on a deserted stretch of beach was synonymous with Itachi waiting for Hidan to get tired of swearing at him.

And still he returned, day after day.

One day, after about a month and a half, there was a change.

Itachi came to that stretch of beach and found that someone had carved something into the rocks at the edge of the water. Closer inspection revealed it to say 'curious, are we?'

His visits grew more frequent.

Sometimes he found little messages, many of which made little sense, and sometimes he didn't. He wasn't even sure if Kisame was the one writing them.

But a little hope was better than utter hopelessness.

He found more carved rocks over the next year-he even found a lovely little bracelet of alabaster pearls tied to one of these rocks. From that day on he never took it off; he rubbed it as a nervous habit, he worried the pearls unconsciously when he thought about that day on the beach, and took hope from it when weeks, then months, then a year passed without him ever catching a glimpse of Kisame.

His parents had pestered him for days after his miraculous survival wanting to know how he alone had lived. He gave them no real answer, and eventually they began to ask questions themselves. They eventually unearthed that the very princess he'd been sent off to see had been in his home country the whole time, and that on the day he had been found she'd been on the beach. His parents concluded that she had saved Itachi and Itachi didn't answer their questions and acting oddly because he was head-over-heals in love.

Itachi suffered their wild misunderstanding only because once they came to this conclusion they stopped trying to talk him out of his near daily trips to the beach.

* * *

Kisame really should have left well enough alone. But where was the fun in that?

Despite Chiyo's constant lectures on why he was being an idiot, he returned to that stretch of land where he had parted ways with Itachi Uchiha. After a few days searching, he'd found that Itachi's proper title was 'His Magnificent and Esteemed Royal Highness, Prince Itachi Uchiha, Flame of Konoha.' Small wonder he hadn't given his whole name-what a pain it must be to have a name like that. It took much longer than necessary to write, and sounded so pretentious.

However, once knowing his proper name, it was much easier to find him.

There was a magnificent marble and glass palace with a view of the ocean a few miles south of where he had beached Itachi. The sun glittered on the white marble and the glass windows-the thing was like a beacon, and Kisame was drawn to it like a moth to flame. If he was to find a 'His Magnificent and Esteemed Royal Highness,' he would probably find them there.

He observed the prince from the sea as best he could. From what he saw, his prince was just as wonderful as he had seemed when Kisame first saw him on the doomed ship. He didn't boast, or womanize, or squander his obvious wealth. He made an actual effort to keep from turning into another one of those nobles who also resided in the palace, the squishy looking ones with the large bellies and short legs. He went for walks, left the palace to go to the actual city, didn't stuff his face with rich food.

He was fair with people, and honest.

He was competent, and confident.

And, though he rarely saw it in such a relatively safe place as the palace, he was right about the fighting spirit. That must be why they called him the 'Flame of Konoha'- when his fighting blood was raised, his eyes seemed to burn.

Eventually Kisame caught on that he wasn't the only one who remembered their little meeting on the beach. The Prince took time out of most days to come down to that very same stretch of beach and just look at the sea.

_Curious, are we?_

When Chiyo found out about the rock, she just about had a stroke. What was he thinking, was he _trying_ to be stupid, do you honestly think a silly human would love someone they couldn't even speak to, he must never do anything of the sort again, was he just doing this to get attention, how was one human any different from the rest of the lot, Kisame was too young to know what real love was, this was just a passing obsession, what would his poor mother (may she rest in peace) think if she were here. All of his siblings had sided with her, unable to understand the appeal of a human. Kisame just shrugged the who incident off. Rather than heading Chiyo's words, he ventured to the surface again the next day just as dawn broke to leave Itachi a little present-a bracelet made of perfect white pearls like tiny moons.

Over the next couple months, Kisame did something very stupid, something that significantly shortened life and flavored what little time left to him with nearly endless angst.

He fell in love.

And so began to plan.

**Please Review!**

**Note: I will not be including very many scenes with Hidan actually in them as my Mom has explicitly said that I am not to use swear words in my writing on this site and you really can't write Hidan without swearing. So, regrettably, he will have to be a peripheral character. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Yeah, I own Naruto. Naruto is full of yaoi pairings and most of the villains get happy endings. Yeah, that happened. *not***

Kisame was not the type to sit back and let his love go unrequited. In his opinion, that was rather pathetic. Love is supposed to be the most powerful force on earth, right? Could move the earth and sea and all that stuff, right? So why shouldn't love be able to break the basic rules of biology? Why couldn't he have legs, too?

So when he heard Grandmother Chiyo's conversation with one of his siblings, he decided it was fate.

_ "You said a famous medic came to help Mother. Why couldn't he save her?"_

_ "Child, some things can't be healed."_

_ "I've never met a healer, Chiyo. Does he still live in the palace?"_

_ "No…He left. Your father was a bit…harsh in his grief. He told the medic that he never wanted to see him again. He said some other things too, but they're too vulgar to be repeated."_

_ "Where did he go?"_

_ "He went where his talents were… better appreciated."_

_ "That tells me nothing, Chiyo."_

_ "He went to the sea witch."_

The sea witch. A popular villain in Chiyo's stories with many mysterious powers. _Unnatural_ powers, according to Chiyo. This sea witch concocted oddly-colored potions and kept jars full of miscellaneous body parts on shelves all around a vast and dark cave surrounded by whirlpools and dead and dying plants like snakes that would wrap themselves around your fins. A thoroughly fearsome and treacherous character. Sometimes Chiyo would refer to the sea witch by his given name, Orochimaru, but rarely. She seemed to think the name alone could tempt the children to do something she wouldn't approve of.

When Kisame was younger, he had asked if Chiyo had ever actually met this mysterious sea witch. She had been utterly horrified, and gave him a resounding no. For days afterword he had wondered how Chiyo could know all of these terrible things about someone without having ever actually met them, and eventually came to the conclusion that perhaps Chiyo didn't know what she was talking about.

Perhaps this sea witch would be able to do the unnatural and give Kisame legs.

And so Kisame found himself sneaking out of the palace while his siblings and Chiyo slept. Hopefully if they woke and found him gone they would think he'd gone to play the moonstruck fool pining after Prince Itachi and wouldn't come after him. He always came back eventually, after all. Why would this time be any different?

Chiyo thought she knew what was best for him. She thought this was a crush he would get over at the snap of her fingers. She thought there were no humans with any worth in the world.

She thought wrong.

Kisame swam as quietly as he could through the palace gates and off into the cold and unlit waters between here and this fabled sea witch. He wasn't really in danger of being followed, but there was no such thing as being too careful.

Eventually, the ocean floor began to slope downwards, and the water grew steadily darker and colder. Strange, bioluminescent fish swam in these depths, hideous creatures with disproportionately large teeth and long, thin bodies. Most fled before Kisame, but a few seemed to think he qualified as food. At one point he ran into an angler fish which, enraged that Kisame turned town it's softly glowing lantern, chopped at his tail with its over-sized saber-teeth. It had quickly backed off, however, when those teeth snapped like brittle bones thrown against a wall instead of sinking into the large upper fin muscles, and injury that would have crippled Kisame to the point of being unable to swim.

After about an hour of swimming, the waters around Kisame began to move a little bit faster. As he continued, they grew even more insistent, tugging on his fins and carrying him closer to his destination.

A huge crack in the bottom of the ocean, a canyon where sunlight ever touched. Dangerous undercurrents were whipping through here, and if he wasn't careful, he'd wind up caught in one of those and would be whisked away from any recognizable landmark before he could blink. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then dove down into the darkness of the fissure.

Slowly, the water started moving even faster and no longer from one single direction. These were whirlpools, just as Chiyo had said. Just like in her stories, their swirling waters funneled anything unlucky enough to get trapped in one all the way to the floor of the canyon.

So perhaps she was right every once in a while. But she wasn't right about Itachi.

The floor of the cavern was surprisingly large. It would take Kisame at least an hour to swim it's width, and several days to follow it's entire length.

After the whirlpools came the dying plants. Chiyo had been right again-they _were _like snakes. He could have sworn they were alive with the way they swayed in the deep sea currents. It was almost hypnotic. He raised his eyes a little to look over the field of decaying plants. There, on the other side of these creepy plants, was the mouth of a large cave. Stalagmites and stalactites protruding from the cave blocked a faint, sickly light emanating from somewhere deep inside the cave. This had to be the place. He tentatively swam forward.

Almost immediately one of the plants twisted around where his tail met his fins. He reached around to untangle it, but it was too slippery to get a good grip on. It felt like Itachi's back had felt last year when blood has seeped from his shoulder. Failing to untie himself, he tugged. It took a few tries, but the thing eventually broke, only for another to catch his tail.

It was like they were eels instead of plants.

Kisame kept pushing and tugging his way through the plants towards the cave. He dared not stop and rest for fear that more of these things would get tangled around him. He knew it was irrational, but it seemed that if he stopped and rested and grew more entangled, then he would never get free and would starve to death in the murky water where no one could heat him or ever find him.

Better to keep moving.

He had made considerable progress, and had found that if you ripped them out of the ground by the root, their strength faded and they slid right off his fin. But when he turned around to try to estimate how far he'd come, the field looked exactly as it had when he first reached it. No plants were broken or twisted, and there was certainly no path. Just those awful brown plants swaying in the currents. Like they had never been disturbed in the first place.

He didn't look back again.

Eventually he made it out of the field. Shaking himself to force the last bits of plant off of him, he looked up to find himself before a giant cave. Somehow, the stalagmites and stalactites looked even more like bared teeth from up close. But he could see a light shining inside. A wavering, dim light, but a light all the same. Someone was here, and Kisame was not turning back now.

He had come here to get legs and he was getting them.

Nothing grew in the cave-not one piece of grass, not one barnacle. The walls were smooth black rock. Sound acted oddly here-every echo could be heard clearly. Kisame could even hear his own breathing bouncing off these walls and water swishing against the cave walls.

He could hear other things, but he didn't dwell on those.

The sea witch was waiting for him when he arrived. He was leaning against a stalactite, smirking. His eyes yellow, slitted eyes were glowing eerily in the dark. His skin was so pale it seemed to glow. His black hair melted into the darkness like a raven's feather pen in spilled ink.

"I've been expecting you."

There was something _off_ about his voice, but Kisame couldn't put his finger on precisely what it was. It sounded more like a snake's hiss than anything else. Something raspy and low and flowing, like bloody silk. That more than the whirlpools or the dying field or the lifeless cave almost made Kisame turn around and find some other way to get legs.

Almost.

"Can you give me legs?" He might as well ask the question outright. It was what he intended to ask for, and no amount of sugar coating would change the fact that he wanted this creep he had just met to mangle his body.

"I can help you. But I should warn you now, once I give you legs, I will not take them back. You will be cursed with them until the day you die. But you're not going to listen to me, will you? Because you're in love, and that has made you very stupid. You will get what you want, and you will suffer terribly for it."

"But you _can_ make it happen?"

Orochimaru laughed, a sound that sent shivers racing down Kisame's spine. "But of course. Though not for free, of course."

Of course. Whatever this man was, he was not a good Samaritan. He would be getting something out of this deal, and it would likely be something hard to part with. Kisame looked at the man critically. Perhaps he thought that if he asked for a high enough price, Kisame wouldn't pay it. But what could Kisame possibly have that he would rather part with than part with Itachi? "What do you want?"

The sea witch smirked. "You merpeople always have such lovely voices. I know my darling Kabuto would _love _to play around with suck a... _sweet_ tongue. So that is my price-your pretty tongue. Is your darling human worth your voice? Oh, but there's no point in asking you. You will say it is, and curse yourself for it once you realize precisely what it is you've given up."

Kisame just nodded. He had hoped to talk to Itachi, but so what if he couldn't? He would get to be on land with him, and that was good enough for him.

The sea witch smirked again, and then called to an unseen figure further in the cave. "Kabuto! I have something for you!"

A merman swam forward at Orochimaru's call. So this was the man that had treated his mother.

"This foolish merman has agreed to give me his tongue in exchange for legs. Cut it out then do as you please with it. And you," here the sea witch turned to Kisame, "this is your last chance to back out. You will get legs with this potion, legs that will cause you nothing but pain. Every step will feel as though you tread on knives, and the pain will not dull with time.

"Also, there is another condition. If the prince marries someone else, then at sunrise on the first day of his marriage your heart will break and you will die and return to the ocean in defeat as sea foam. You can never settle for being his second favorite.

"Do you agree?"

"So be it."

Orochimaru laughed again, and beckoned Kabuto over.

His heart beat in his ears as he stuck out his tongue at let Kabuto's cold knife sink into the muscles and sever them. Blood gushed from the cut down his throat, almost choking him. _It hurt. _Oh god it hurt. Muscles parted and screamed silently. His hands trembled and clenched at nothing.

But not once did he scream.

Once his tongue lay in Kabuto's hands, Orochimaru offered him a cup of a poisonous looking liquid, still smirking. Kisame took it with trembling hands and forced himself to swallow all of it, blocking out Orochimaru's laugh as he sipped. The concoction tasted like burning snake venom sliding down his throat.

"I suggest you swim for the surface, little merman. The potion has a delayed effect, but it will eventually rob you of that fin."

Kisame bolted from the cave and towards the surface as fast as he could, but Orochimaru's laugh and parting words somehow managed to catch up with him.

_"Enjoy your living hell!"_

Oh, but Orochimaru was wrong. It might be painful, but it wouldn't be hell. It couldn't be hell if he got to have an angel beside him.

Just as he reached the surface he felt a burning pain in his tail, like it was being ripped in half down the middle. He looked down and saw his fins shrinking and splitting. It burned, but he welcomed the feeling. It meant the potion he had bartered his tongue for was working. He picked up speed as best he could with his growing handicap; he didn't have a whole lot of time left to get to the surface.

But he didn't need more time. The palace was not far from here, and once he got there he would have no reason to stay in the water.

Each flick of his tale grew more painful and propelled him shorter distances, but he couldn't concentrate on that when the lovely palace of marble and glass drew closer. Once he got there, he'd have to attract Itachi's attention somehow. How to do it though...

By the time he'd dragged himself out of the water and onto a rock outside the Prince's private chambers, the moon was high in the sky and his magnificent tail was no more.

Kisame stood shakily upon the rock. Sea spray flicked into the air as waves crashed into the rock. The cold droplets of water hit soft skin for the first time. Yes, it was just as the witch had warned- he could have sworn Kabuto's knife was now embedded in his foot rather than his tongue. He felt he must be bleeding, but when he checked the bottom of his foot he found the skin unmarked. He smirked to himself, letting his broken-glass-teeth show (He'd have to hide those now that he was posing as a human). This was perfect.

Itachi would never know.

Kisame smiled to himself and gazed up at Itachi's window overlooking the water with a smooth black pebble in the palm of his hand.

"Itachi, here I come."

And the pebble flew through the air with a swish and bounced off the thick glass of Itachi's window with a dull _thud_.

_Itachi, here I come._

**Please Review!**

**Has anyone seen that great YouTube video of 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' put to Orochimaru clips? It's a well-put together video. **

**Also- this is my first time writing yaoi, and in all honesty my other romances aren't as good as I'd like them to be. Can anyone give me some advice?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.**

Thud.

Itachi groaned and turned over in his sleep. Getting up to greet the day was very low on his list of priorities just now. He was having that dream again, the one that starts like a nightmare but quickly turns to strong arms pulling him upwards and quiet singing. He really didn't want to deal with whatever sorry messenger had been sent to politely force him out of bed. The Court could write up as many official complaints as they wanted, he was staying in bed until the dream was done.

Thud.

Really, did they have to be so insistent? Couldn't they just take a hint? What could possibly be so important?

The dream was fading. Already he couldn't distinguish the different notes of the song, already the colors were fading to early morning shadows. What time was it anyway? Three o'clock in the morning? There was no light streaming through the eastward-facing window, so the sun must still be tucked under the horizon. What could possibly be so important that someone from Court was awake at this ungodly hour? It had to be someone from Court knocking on his door; they always wanted his input these days. Probably because they were finally starting to realize that he would be their king sometime in the near future.

Thud.

Funny, it almost seemed like the knocking was coming from his window...

His window which faced the beach.

Itachi was out of bed and half-dressed before he even considered the option that this had nothing to do with elusive mermen. Something was hitting his window from the beach, it was early enough that no one would slow him down in the halls. His lovely dream had faded completely anyway, so he might as well get up.

His slippered feet pounded on the stone floor as he raced down the stairs as fast as he could. About halfway down it registered to him that he wasn't properly dressed, but he flung the thought aside. It didn't matter, and he certainly wasn't running all the way back to his room.

He schooled his face into a disapproving frown as he ran. If anyone did stop him, that expression should be enough to make them consider whether or not it could wait. And if not, he could always pull out his infamous death glare...

The doors were before him, then behind him-he hardly noticed. All that mattered was that he was getting closer to the gate, then closer to the stairs leading down to the beach, then closer to the beach itself.

He really shouldn't be letting himself hope like this. His hopes would only be crushed, if that Kisame hadn't shown himself during all of those months after the shipwreck then why would he show himself now, it was probably some girl and then he'd be sorry he even got up, what did he think he was doing...

Oh, screw it! For better or worse, hope springs eternal.

The stairs carved out of the cliff ended. Cold, wet sand sunk through the flimsy material of his slippers.

He looked wildly around, searching for a tale, a merman, even one of those carved rocks, ANYTHING! But it was so dark out- a cloud had passed over the moon. He saw vague shapes and shadows, but nothing definite. It was like a thin black cloth had been tied around his eyes. He turned and stumbled over a rock plastered with barnacles. The sharp edges tore through his thin socks, and blood trickled down his shin and stained his slippers a dark copper.

Oh well. They were pretty impractical anyway.

The clouds drifted a little, and a beam of moonlight shone through.

A lone figure stood on one of the tall rocks at the low tide mark, where the waves crashed against the shore and spray was flung up like confetti when the water hit the rock. He couldn't tell who it was from here, or even their gender, but he could see their legs.

Disappointment spread through his fog of hope like winter wind extinguishing a fire. So it really was just some airhead Konoha girl who thought the prince would love her on sight. She was probably some weakling who would want to be 'protected' and would be just like every other porcelain doll he saw every day at court, only without money and a family name to brag about and use to act like she was better than everyone else. He could tell from here she didn't even have the strength to brace herself very well against the rock; her stance was shaky and tense, like her legs had almost no power in them.

Oh well. If he just left now, she'd never know he saw her at all. She'd give up eventually, and leave.

Suddenly, the figure swayed, legs giving out under her, and toppled into the surf with an audible splash. He couldn't tell from where he stood if she'd hit one of those rocks on the way down, but chances were she had.

Well he couldn't very well turn around and sneak away _now_, could he?

He ran to where she had fallen, hoping she was unconscious so he wouldn't have to listen to her babble about 'fate' and 'her prince charming coming to save her' and 'love.' He didn't think he could deal with that at three o'clock in the morning, especially after she woke him from his pleasant dreams.

He found the body lying limply between the rocks-by some miracle she had fallen between them-and was delighted to find that it was not a girl, and less delighted to find that they didn't appear to have any clothes.

The outgoing tide was trying to pull the limp body out to sea, but the rocks stood like an impassable gate between the open ocean and the beach. The boy wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. His eyes were closed and there was a little blood in his hair, so the boy probably had hit his head. He'd better get this boy up to the palace infirmary as soon as possible. It looked like he was about the same age as Itachi.

Itachi closed his eyes and lifted the body out of the water. It was a bit heavier than he'd imagined, but nothing he couldn't deal with. Resolutely not looking at the nude body in his arms, he jogged up the stairs at a more cautious pace than his journey down them; it wouldn't do to trip and drop the boy because he was going to fast.

The gates and doors into the palace were still open from his flight through them earlier, so he didn't have to pause to open them. He was almost stopped by a guardsman, but upon seeing the wet body he was carrying the man had gotten out of the prince's way. Why stop and question the prince when he could go and feed this story to the palace gossip wheel?

Why was the infirmary so far from the palace proper? Sure, the chief nurse claimed all the noise and excitement in that part of the palace was bad for her patients, but it made it so much more inconvenient to get there. So many corridors...

The boy in his arms stirred and groaned a little. Itachi picked up the pace a little. Where was it, where was it, shouldn't he have reached it by now, THERE!

Itachi had to put the boy down to get the doors to the infirmary open; when he went to pick him up again there was a little smear of red on the floor. The prince threw the boy on one of the white beds and dashed across the room to the chief nurse's office and quarters.

It took a few tries to get the nurse awake, but once she had wiped the sleep-crust from her eyes and splashed cold water on her face and sent for one of her underlings to come, she got to work on the unconscious boy. A large white sheet was draped over his body to preserve his modesty; or at least what was left of it.

Itachi was ushered out of the room by a rather pushy nurses' assistant within minutes of entering the infirmary, but before he left he noticed something strange.

The legs of the boy stuck out from the end of the sheet.

Seeing as he was probably not about to get back into the infirmary to check on the boy for some time, he headed back up to his room to change into dry clothes and try to get back to sleep. And maybe have that dream again...

The door to his room was still open when he arrived, but it didn't look like anyone had gone inside. Looks like the servants hadn't woken up yet. Good. He didn't want to be disturbed just yet.

He plopped down on the bed and started yanking off his wet socks and slippers. It took some effort to get them off-they were stuck to his feet when the blood from his cuts dried. Water and wet sand dripped from them as Itachi struggled to free his feet from them, creating a soggy spot on the floor. He'd have to get rid of those slippers before his mother saw them. She already admonished him every time he came back from the beach with barnacle scrapes. He didn't need a lecture this early in the morning. His hastily chosen shirt and pants came off easier-they were only damp.

Itachi sighed and fell back into his pillows and shut his eyes. Maybe he could get away with sleeping in today...

Who was that kid anyway? He certainly wasn't a girl and didn't have a tail. If he wanted clothes, there were easier ways to get into the palace. Had he been throwing those rocks hoping to wake someone up to come help him? Or was it more than a coincidence that his pebbles hit the prince's private bedchamber window?

And why couldn't that kid stand on those rocks? Sure, there was a pretty strong current around those rocks sometimes, and sure they were slippery and covered in barnacles, but the one that kid had been standing on was flat and dry. The tide had been going out, and it was the tallest rock in the immediate area. He should have had no trouble standing on that rock.

His legs had been sticking out of the sheet in the infirmary. Itachi had gotten a quick look at them before he had been all but dragged out by that impatient assistant. They had been layered in muscle, like the boy had been a powerful swimmer.

How could a boy in his late teens, maybe his twenties with legs like that have trouble standing on a dry, flat rock?

He'd have to get another good look at that boy once the sun had properly risen. It had been so dark he hadn't seen his face.

Perhaps there was more to this boy than met the eye.

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, a messenger raced silently as a shadow towards the queen's chambers.

Only kitchen servants were up at this hour, but the figure still moved as quietly as they could. It wouldn't do at all to be held up or stopped and questioned.

This message was for Her Majesty's ears only.

The Queen had private chambers up in the south tower where she stayed when, like now, His Majesty was away. It was out of the way, and private guards stood sentinel at several doors throughout the tower all day and night when the queen was using those chambers. Only long employed and highly trusted servants were allowed up here, but the messenger was nodded through each doorway with hardly a glance at their face.

They were well known by these articular guards.

It was laughable how many people thought the sole purpose of this tower was private rooms for the queen. Why stop at private sleeping quarters? Why not add in a private meeting room, away from His Majesty's ears for cooking up schemes His Majesty would probably try to talk her out of?

Her Majesty Queen Tobi was often up at odd times of the night and rarely slept until the witching hour. Many in the palace wondered if she ever slept-no matter when you called on her, she was always awake. Sleep never crusted on her eyes. Her sheets were unusually clean when they were sent down to the laundry woman, and she was known for having a high energy level. So it came as no surprise when Queen Tobi answered the door as soon as the messenger tapped on the imposing wooded door.

"Yes?"

"You're Majesty, she should be here by this evening. There seems to have been no accidents. Everything is going as planned."

"Thank you. You may go sleep now."

The messenger bowed and left.

* * *

Queen Tobi sat down on her bed and smiled.

Her poor son. She had sent him off to get to know that lovely girl he had danced with at the ball, Princess Sakura, only for him to nearly die in a storm. It seemed like fate kept her son from ever meeting the perfect girl. Oh, but Queen Tobi was more than a match for fate. Her son would get to see that girl again, and he would know love. Maybe then he would be less aloof at court...nah, Zetsu was right. That was just how Itachi was. He didn't open up. All the more reason to have a close female presence in his life! Yes, he may pretend not to have any interest in girls and frivolity, but she knew he went almost every day to that little stretch of beach where he had washed ashore.

Where Princess Sakura had saved him

Sometimes it paid to have her own spy network. It certainly did when she learned that Princess Sakura had been not five miles from Konoha City on the day Itachi was found on the beach, not in the country she had sent Itachi off to at all.

Tobi had been watching her son like a hawk during the ball the had thrown on his last birthday. Sakura had been the only girl he had danced with, and her son was, in her experience, an excellent judge of character. This Sakura girl seemed caring, if a bit coarse, and uninterested in pretty dresses and wigs. Even better-Itachi had been quite vocal about how 'moronic' and 'unnecessary to humanity' the girls like that at court were. Surely Sakura would be perfect for Itachi once he got to know her!

She seemed like the kind of girl who would save Itachi from drowning and not claim the credit for it.

Her son may act like he had a ruler up his arse sometimes, but he was still a man, and all men are prone to falling in love, and falling hard. Going to the same place for no apparent reason every day for just under a year, even though he had to hike a couple miles to get there? Surely that was a symptom of love-sickness! Surely this was her son's irrational, loving side finally coming out!

Well, as his mother, what was Tobi to do but help out her son?

That ball had been about a year ago now, so it was really about time she threw another one. And of course Princess Sakura would be invited. And of course Queen Tobi would be much too hospitable to let her guest leave after only staying for a day!

According to the messenger, the princess would be here by this evening if everything went smoothly.

She would get Itachi and Sakura together no matter what obstacle fate threw her way.

**Please Review! **


	7. Chapter 7

Hello, everyone.

I was looking over this story and to tell the truth am a little embarrassed by it. I will be editing it extensively and finishing it over the next long, undefinable period of time, and will take this version down and repost when I am satisfied with the changes. Until then, the story will remain as it is now.

Thanks!

Mountain Ash


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